Last Saturday the Leon Jackson band headed down to rock out at Somerset’s Watchett Festival. The team gave us a really warm welcome and even set us up at a gorgeous B&B (the Mason’s Arms, I recommend it!).
The audience was awesome and, a personal highlight, I busted out the banjo for a few numbers…yeehaw
I love pedal steel country guitar licks! I adore the sound of the technique and get a kick out of busting out pedal steel-esq passages on live shows.
I remember being lucky enough to attend a workshop led by world class pedal steel player Sarah Jory in which she explained how the instrument works. Her playing is wonderfully musical, and from a technical point of view the words that came to me were ‘effortless control‘.
As far as bending licks go, the one in the video below is quite advanced. It’s likely to take quite a bit of practice to maintain the held bend’s pitch while fretting notes on the higher strings. Stick at it and hopefully you’ll get addicted to the sound like I have…enjoy!
Here’s the lick written down:
I like to tailor this blog to what readers like to see. If you’d like some more pedal steel country guitar licks, feel free to comment below and let me know.
Below I’ve given you each of the 5 shapes of the pentatonic scale plus the notation and TAB for the ‘Master Shape’ exercise explained in the video. Enjoy!
Learning how to play the pentatonic scale is a milestone in many guitarists’ playing lives. This series of 5-notes is typically the first scale shape we learn as we move from basic chords into soloing and improvisation concepts.
If you learn how to play the pentatonic scale you can use it to improvise in almost every contemporary style including blues, rock, jazz, country, soul, funk, and pop. Quick to learn, easy to use (all the notes sound good!) – it’s an essential piece of every aspiring guitarist’s arsenal.
In this video I explain how to fret and practice the scale:
The (minor) pentatonic scale formula is: R b3 4 5 b7
The Paul Jackson Jr ‘Science of Rhythm Guitar’ transcription post proved to be quite popular (click here to check it out). Thanks for all the kind words! I’ve uploaded the next set of eight bars in the sequence for you to work through.
Once again, the passage we’re focusing on is at 1:56 in the video. Something to note in the ‘new’ eight bars is how Paul accents his notes. If you watch the video closely you’ll see he’s maintaining consistent 16th-note alternate picking throughout. Not only does this greatly assist in his ability to sit in the groove (his hand acts like a metronome) it also opens up some interesting accenting possibilities.
For example, in the second phrase of bar 12 he actually plays the B and G diad three times but strikes it once with an upstroke (emphasising the B note and barely hitting the G, which is why I haven’t notated the G in that last 16th note of beat 1). The second time he strikes it with a downstroke (on beat 2), which emphasises the G while sounding the B less prominently. On the third occasion he again uses an upstroke (on the second 16th of beat 2), which emphasises the B.
Bear this in mind when working through the music. His style isn’t only about which notes he plays, it’s also about how he strikes them.
I hope you enjoy the clip and transcription – I’ll post the next eight bars this week if there’s interest in the comments section.
A few posts ago, I shared some photographs from Miloco Studios, London where we were tracking an American jazz singer’s album. (Click here to see those pics)
At the end of the day I stayed behind with some of the band to listen in as the production team reviewed the takes. Here’s a video from the control room.
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